


Children of Dionysus -- MoonBeam (part 1)

by meretriciousanddelicious



Series: Children of Dionysus [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: "cry out if you want me to leave", "what makes you think someone hurt me?", (how victorian he can be sometimes), Biting, Consensual, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enthusiastic Consent, Hair-pulling, Hand Job, M/M, Oral Sex, PRODIGIOUS TALENT, Ravishment, Safeword Use, Triggers, a throttling he actually deserved, cheating on his work, dirty talk and also love talk, eidetic memory, gentle lies, no seriously -- enthusiastic consent as foreplay, not a waltz but a volta, scratching an itch -- literally, song of solomon, strung as tight as his violin, the atomic mass of strontium, the most sexy unsexy striptease, the uses of power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:46:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretriciousanddelicious/pseuds/meretriciousanddelicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>POSSIBLE SERIES SPOILERS:  Set to take place the night of the end of the last episode of season 2, assuming that night to be approximately 1.5 to 2 months after Holmes faked his own death. John got his miracle, but we only accept the love we believe we deserve... can he bring Sherlock to believe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of Dionysus -- MoonBeam (part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> Personal head-canon: Sherlock has eidetic memory. Although he has *alluded* to intentionally forgetting information he is not actually capable of doing so. He only has full control over what memory he accesses while awake... mostly.

From a dream of angels falling, John Watson came wide awake in an instant, his left shoulder being shaken insistently in the dark. As he drew in breath to scream, a long hand pressed itself across his mouth.

“Shhhh...” cautioned the deep velvet voice. “No one must know I’m here, John.”

The doctor’s heart was racing. A beam of moonlight through the curtain showed him only the barest details: a curled lock of hair, the texture of a tweed sleeve, the fringe of a scarf.

He shook his head slowly, deliberately.

“I’m not dead, John. Of course I’m not. Nor are you dreaming.”

Watson shut his eyes hard in reply but the stranger took John’s hand in his own and laid it across his chest. Yes, there was the heartbeat, slow and infuriatingly calm; a steady booming beat that filled the broad space inside the jacket.

He lifted Sherlock’s hand away from his mouth.

“You fell and they wouldn’t let me near you,” he hissed.

“They couldn’t,” Sherlock answered quietly. “Even with the dose the cyclist gave you we couldn’t let you really see. You’re a doctor and you’ve worked with violent death before. You might have guessed.”

John’s hands in a heartbeat were throttling Sherlock’s lapels, tightening his collar until it clamped on his windpipe. Holmes grabbed the other man’s wrists and dug his slender thumbs into the tendons there to loosen his grip. His leverage kept the thrashing young man pinned to the mattress.

“You BASTARD!” Watson screamed in a breathy whisper. “I hate you, you heartless bastard! How could you do this to me?” Tears rose up in his squinted eyes and rolled down each cheek, belying his rage.

Sherlock released his arms slowly, feeling again that odd little clench in his midsection, that sensation that he felt often at John’s strange emotions. Thoughtfully he ran his palm down John’s face, brushing away the damp.

“You left me alone...” He choked on the sob.

Sherlock leaned back slightly. The moonbeam traveled across his face, revealing to John for a moment the troubled look in his eyes.

“I *am* sorry,” he said after a while, his voice remote. “It was the only way to save your life.”

Freed, John moved with trained speed, trapping Sherlock in a tight hug.

“I don’t care!” he cried, his tears soaking the front of his friend’s shirt. “We’ve fought them together before and won and we can do it again. Just please don’t ever leave me!”

John’s voice was getting louder and his sobs harder with every word. Sherlock’s pulse hitched – the walls of John’s temporary flat were much thinner than those of 221B Baker St, and the neighbors must *not* awaken to find him here.

He closed his arms around John in return, rocking him slightly back and forth, petting his hair as if he were a frightened child.

“Shhh, John... I won’t leave you.”

The other man shivered and drew closer. “It was AWFUL. The thought of you and your stupid hands and your stupid eyes and your stupid mind down in that cold grave forever – and never again to insult me or shoot the wall or play your damned violin at 3 AM! Never again!”

“It really was awful?” Sherlock queried, oddly touched.

“YES!”

He shushed him again, his hand on the doctor’s cheek. A moment of focused listening told him the surrounding tenants were still insensate.

“It’s over now,” he answered absently. “I’m here now.”

John laid his head over Sherlock’s great heartbeat. “Promise me,” he breathed, so lightly Holmes was tempted to pretend he hadn’t heard. The hand curling threateningly around the fold of his scarf warned him otherwise.

“I promise you,” he murmured. “I won’t ever leave you.”

That seemed to be enough; John relaxed his hold and his breathing slowed, so much so that for a moment Holmes thought he slept again.

Then he said “What brought you here tonight, Holmes?”

Sherlock had pondered that very question himself, earlier that evening, staring into the rubbish fire under the bridge, his tin mug of tea almost forgotten in his hand. He’d thought about it for – for him, at least – quite some time.

Why follow John to his own mummer’s grave? Why sneak out tonight under the waning moon and wake Watson, only to cause this turmoil and noise and threat of detection?

He exhaled slowly. “Sentiment,” he replied, his tone dry.

“Isn’t that very dangerous for you?” John leaned back a bit, trying to peer up at him in the gloom.

“Absolutely. If you had screamed just now, for example, I’d have had to sprint away over the rooftops like a common house burglar.”

“I still could, you know,” Watson said. “Scream, I mean.”

“Do you want to?”

Sherlock was still just an outline in the greater darkness, and his deep toneless voice gave nothing away. John sought Sherlock’s meaning as if blind; his hands drifting across his shoulders and up his throat to his face, searching for the wrinkle of forehead or the crinkle of his strange almond eyes or the quirk at the corner of his lips… any of the Holmes topography he’d learned over the last year that might tell him what the man was thinking.

But his fingers had their own agenda and without conscious thought he found himself drawing that tousled head down to his own.

When their lips met, color and light exploded behind Sherlock’s eyelids – the Golden Mean as represented by an ocean wave or a snail’s shell; the sunrise on the morning of his thirteenth birthday on holiday in Scotland; the scent of arsenic and menthol; the crisp lines on a forged 100 pound note; a liquid flow of notes he identified as the Goldberg Variations...

When his ears cleared he found Watson murmuring over and over “I shouldn’t have done that; I shouldn’t have done that...”

And yet his fingers were still stirring the small curls at the nape of Sherlock’s neck beneath his collar. Holmes leaned his dizzy forehead against Watson’s, exhaling slowly, unable to comprehend their separate distresses. He could feel each hair moving, sending a sympathetic vibration down the muscles of his back.

“Cry out, if you want me to leave,” he whispered.

The hands in his hair flinched. “Sherlock...”

It was another few seconds before he realized Watson was waiting.

“Yes, John?”

The young soldier took a deep breath to steady himself. “I know you said... at the beginning when we first met... that you considered yourself married to your work.”

“Yes?”

John swallowed hard, nose to nose with the kneeling shadow on his bed.

“Do you think you could perhaps cheat on it, just for tonight?”

“John...” Sherlock, man of a thousand daring escapes, had no idea where to turn. “Would it only be one night? Could a door like that, once opened, ever truly be closed?”

“I don’t know,” John answered quietly, “and I don’t think I care. All I know is that I went to bed believing you gone from me forever and here you are now. Like the miracle I asked for. And tonight I need you to stay. Here. In this bed. With me.”

“But I’ve got my shoes still on.”

John wanted to laugh and cry all at once at the confusion in his companion’s voice.

“Then take off your clothes,” he suggested.

Sherlock made as if to stand up but the other man clutched at his jacket desperately to stop him.

“Don’t set one foot to the floor, Sherlock,” he warned. “If you do, something will happen to cause you to leave, I just know it. Stay here on the bed.”

The young genius complied, shifting around to sit cross-legged on the blankets. With exaggerated caution he stripped off socks and shoes, leaned down, and slid them under the foot of the bed. He took off his scarf and jacket and dropped them to the carpet, taking care that the gun in the inside pocket did not rattle or discharge.

His hands were undoing his collar when John brushed them away and took over. He opened each button languidly, his fingertips brushing the soft flesh of Sherlock’s throat and chest.

Fourier transformations. Shakespeare’s sonnets – no. John Donne – NO. The melting temperature of mercury. The date of the last full lunar eclipse in Great Britain...

The feel of linen slipping across his skin as John spread the shirt open.

Holmes shuddered all over then, once, like a horse shaking off a fly.

John rose up on his knees briefly, sensitive to his friend’s discomfort, easing the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms to be tossed away. He ran his palms up Sherlock’s wrists and counted the squares of surgical plastic. Startled, he laughed – but softly, so Sherlock wouldn’t have to scold him.

“I was only a two-patch problem, then?”

“That was all my network could get for me on short notice,” he answered mildly. “That’s what took me so long. That, and waiting for moonrise.”

John smiled in the night, his first real smile since that awful day. “I know your weakness,” he almost purred.

“Oh really...”

“Yes. You have a very slight allergic reaction to the adhesive on these patches.” Gently he began to scratch the skin of Sherlock’s forearm around each buff-colored rectangle.

With ears sharpened by the darkness, John thrilled to hear the breath rattle in Sherlock’s lungs. The sound that he finally permitted himself to voice was somewhere between a moan and a sigh.

Too soon Holmes took back his hand. “What do we do now?”

“You take off your pants and get under the covers with me.”

The shadow outline was still for a long moment. Then it slowly reclined on the mattress... unbuttoning, unfastening, unzipping. Thumbs underneath waistband. Back arching to slip the trousers down; legs lifting away.

With all clothing laid aside Sherlock crawled through the moonbeam, revealing one slice at a time his eyes, his hair, the line of abdomen, a taut thigh, and a glimpse of his half-hard member – as confused and terrified as its owner.

John felt as if someone had dashed ice water in his face. What am I doing? I’m not gay! I fancy girls! I’ve had enough of them to be sure about it! And Sherlock... I don’t even *know* what he is… I don’t know if *he* even knows...

~He’s not human,~ answered a rude voice out of the past. ~He’s a freak. A monster.~

Then there was warmth again; Sherlock beneath the blankets and sheets, trembling – until John unthinking wrapped him in his arms. Sherlock hid his burning face against John’s throat even as he returned and tightened the embrace.

*My* freak, thought Watson. *My* monster. *My friend.* Men are men; women are women – and there are billions of each on this planet but only *one* Sherlock Holmes. The normal rules cannot apply.

“You’ve still got *your* pants on,” Holmes muttered, disapproving.

John chuckled and freed a hand to undo the drawstring of his pajama bottoms, the only clothing he’d worn to bed tonight. It was a moment’s work to be free of them, kicking them out of bed into a harmonious tangle with Sherlock’s garments on the floor.

But when he turned back, Sherlock was half-curled into a fetal ball. John held back the sigh he felt in his chest, then leaned up and made sure the covers were snug around Sherlock’s shoulder and that no draft would intrude to cause discomfort.

He showed no resistance when Watson cupped his face in his hands; only his two cat-tilted eyes gleamed in the dark.

“What do you really want tonight, Sherlock?”

“If I knew that, I’d already have it,” he answered irritably.”

“Do you want me to help you try to figure it out?”

Sherlock bit his lip, hesitated, and sighed.

“Yes, John.”

“I’m not going to force you,” the young doctor replied, so painfully sincere that Sherlock almost smiled. “At any step of the way you can say no and we’ll stop. But I need you to stay involved with this, Sherlock. For instance, this that I’m doing now...”

He stroked his fingertips through the chocolate brown curls he couldn’t see; Holmes exhaled as he massaged his scalp and temples.

“Who am I, Sherlock?”

“You’re John Watson.”

“What am I doing to you?”

“You’re touching my hair... my head.”

“Do you like it? Do you want me to continue?”

“Yes...”

John leaned in again, nuzzling along Sherlock’s cheek until he met his mouth once more.

Sherlock’s lips were only slightly thinner than a girl’s, he decided, and no less soft or sweet. He ran just the tip of his tongue over the other man’s mouth, slowly so as not to startle him. The full idea of what he was doing and just who he was exploring was still unfolding in his head.

“Oh, Sherlock...” he breathed, and the name was safe in his mouth.

Although his pulse was even, Holmes found his nerves aflame and his skin helplessly flushed under Watson’s attention. Without conscious command his memory palace unfurled in front of his sightless eyes and showed him all of John Watson, from the moment they met – every glance, every word, every movement – until that last blurry glimpse from two blocks away, through the tears that had filled his eyes, right before he jumped.

The way he shambled before he’d got his morning coffee. The way he hadn’t told anyone how his wounded shoulder stiffened up and hurt him in cold weather. The endless boring girls he brought in who, unwilling to compete with Watson’s devotion to his friend, always left again. The way he—

“Ahhh!” Holmes gasped, more in shock than pain. “You bit me!”

“Caught that, did you?”

“Do you *always* attack your bedmates?”

“No,” said Watson gently. “Only when they are Sherlock Holmes and they have retreated back into their shell. You were holding your breath and I know what that means.”

“What does it mean?” sulked Holmes, touching his offended ear. Not bleeding, at least, but it had felt like a pretty good nip…

“It means you’ve got a complicated problem so you’ve gone into your memory palace to try to solve it but you’ve still got too many options so you can’t narrow it down. It’s like you forget to breathe. I had to snap you out of it.”

He pulled him closer, belly to belly, tenderly kissing the wound he had caused.

“Stay with me, Sherlock. Here in this moment. Feel everything that is happening. I don’t want your unresisting empty flesh... I want your mind, your body, your soul – one hundred percent of you. Everything.”

Now he was kissing and caressing the column of Sherlock’s throat; how could a touch so gentle and light cause his breath to freeze in his chest?

“I don’t know if I can,” he moaned, hands empty and flexing, utterly lost. “Sensation... is just a tool. Just another means of exploring, of learning. A way to quantify my environment...”

“This is learning, isn’t it? Isn’t this new to you? It is to me...” He slid his shorter body against Holmes’s gangly frame and smiled at his gasp.

“Those stupid girls you have... I’ve heard you sometimes...”

“That is not like this,” Watson corrected him. “I’ve never made love to Sherlock Holmes before, and I’m coming to suspect that Sherlock Holmes has never been made love to.”

And now his cool was breaking; now his pulse was rising. John heard that great heart pounding under his hands and lips.

“What is happening to you now, Sherlock?”

“You’re touching me... my chest...”

“Yes... your nipples...” He suited action to words and was delighted when his friend bit the back of his own hand to keep from crying out.

“Who is touching your nipples, Sherlock?” he pressed.

“You, of course it is you, John Watson!”

“Do you like it? Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yes!” he hissed.

Through the tattered shreds of his composure he wondered at Watson’s Dick-and-Jane-see-Spot-run line of continued questioning. Who else would be here, doing this to him? Who else, but the doctor – and warrior – who was the only human to see him as a marvel and not a monster?

Who the hell else but the man he’d woken tonight thinking to comfort and reassure but who was now taking over, destroying all his boundaries and herding him through this confusing new experience that filled him with terror and a foreign sense of need?

When he made the connection he chuckled quietly, strangely relieved. He *knows*. He knows I’m petrified over this. *He* fears that if he pushes me I’ll shut down entirely. He’s worried that if he doesn’t get my assent in each stage he’ll wind up taking advantage of me...

John, perplexed by his partner’s sudden laughter, stilled his hands to cup Holmes’s sides. “What is it?”

“You can stop asking, John...” he whispered. “You can’t rape the willing, so they say...”

John smiled and kissed his cheek gently, feeling the tremors still inside the young man. “I know you’re willing,” he murmured, meaning no such thing, “but I like to hear it. I like to know you’re still engaged in this... and I like to hear you say my name.”

“John...” he breathed. “... like that?”

Watson bit his lip and groaned. “Yes. Like that.”

The flash of teeth – a grin in the dark. Then Sherlock was caressing his short-cropped hair, lithe long fingers destroying his sanity at their tentative movements.

That’s it, he managed to think. He may not understand love, but the uses of *power* he grasps all too well. He feels the power he has over me and it strengthens him. Time to turn the tables again.

His palms ran a firm path down his friend’s flat abdomen – days of not eating and nights of nicotine and violin had given him a physique even a soldier would be proud of. He felt Sherlock arch his back.

“Do you want me to?”

“Do I have to say it?”

“I live to hear it,” he purred, his fingers stirring idly.

“Yes, I want you to.”

“You want me to do... what, exactly?”

“You maddening bastard,” Sherlock growled, and moved one of John’s hands onto his groin.

Now it was Watson’s turn to hold his breath. Cool sleek hair at first, wavy locks as soft as that on his head – then a shaft burning hot to touch. Cautiously he moved his grip to encompass him… and found his grip being overflowed.

“Now that is *just not fair!*” he snapped.

“What?” asked Sherlock, voice dazed.

“Your great genius *and* THIS prodigious talent...”

“Useless and mostly troublesome,” he dismissed it.

“Marvelous and perfectly beautiful,” John argued. He slid his hands up gradually, out of reflex, and heard Sherlock groan shockingly loud in the tiny room.

“Stay with me, Sherlock,” he cautioned. “Be with me now.”

“I – I –“

“Yes?”

“I’m so warm...”

Trying not to move his hands Watson shrugged the covers down to their waists.

“What is the atomic mass of strontium?” he demanded.

“87.62,” his friend answered instantly.

“Who am I, Sherlock?”

“John Holmes,” he replied just as fast. Watson grinned: he doesn’t even know what he’s just said.

“Close enough. Now here’s the tough one. What am I doing to you right now?”

“You’re touching me… you’ve got your hands on my...”

“Your cock, love. I’m touching your cock. You can say the word.”

“Love?” he asked. He couldn’t seem to breathe deep enough at all now.

“No, cock,” replied John, amused.

“But you called me...”

“And you are. Tonight you are. You are my lover now, as much as you are my friend.”

“Oh....”

“Do you mind that? That I called you ‘love’?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to stop what I’m doing?”

“No!”

He took his hands back anyway (to Sherlock’s moan of mingled relief and frustration). With one he pulled the trembling young man into an embrace. “Hold onto me, to my shoulders. Remember to keep breathing.”

The other hand went back to its work, exploring every centimeter. The fluted corona; the textured ridges and wrinkles behind it; the gentle curve of the shaft; the bas relief of the vital veins; the sac that pulled hard and tight with need at his touch; then back up to that smooth patch below the head (just the right size for thumb-pad or tongue-tip) and the slit oozing its clear fluid.

He made the whole circuit again, thoughtful and slow, then tightened his hold and began to work him in earnest.

Sherlock was helpless then to the words carving themselves frenetically across his corneas –

*he brought me to the banqueting house his banner over me was love stay me with flagons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love his left hand is undermyheadandhisrighthanddothembraceme*

The pressure and movement – John breathing in concert with him in the dark – the hard warmth in the hollow of his thigh that was John’s own evidence of desire –

“Stop oh god stop!” he managed to ground out, his hands spasming painfully on John’s arms, trembling all over.

Watson was as good as his word; the cold air that slapped him as John moved away was as bracing as a true blow and brought him back to himself again.

“Holmes... are you okay? Can you tell me what happened?” His voice soft and steady, filled with nothing but concern – but not physically touching him at all. Sherlock was lost again in the darkness, floating alone, a world adrift in the frigid void of space.

Alone, as always. As ever. Of course.

He laughed, a pain-filled rasping bitter sound that made Watson wince.

“Nothing... you did nothing wrong.... I just... I...” Deep gasping breath. “I... was about to spend, in your hand... like some callous school boy...”

Watson’s first reaction (how Victorian he can be sometimes) was rapidly engulfed in his second, attended by dawning horror and a dart of sadness.

“Sherlock,” he replied hesitantly, “did you not know that was my goal?”

“Why?” was the only response.

And now John could see as if in a dream – the blocks falling, the lines adding up, the facts and conclusions binding themselves together so neatly. Is that how it is for him all the time? This sudden rush of knowing?

Afraid of himself, of the monster he must be; afraid of his own body and its illogical demands. Ashamed of its strange responses. Ashamed of selfish desire. Never touched, never wanting to be touched until now, and then with a passion untrustworthy in its sudden devious strength.

To combat his reserve I must be wanton. To relieve his shame I must be unashamed. To unlock his silence I must tell him everything in my mind, in my heart. Anything less right now and he’ll run from me.

He reached out and drew Holmes’s long fingers into the shelter of his own. Touching him nowhere else he shifted to lean forward until his lips barely brushed Sherlock’s earlobe, until his whispered words would be inescapable.

“Because I want to watch you come. I want to *feel* you come. Sherlock... because I want to hear you cry my name at the cusp. I want to see you shake in the beautiful agony of climax and know that I brought you to it.

“Because you are my love... because I love you... and in some ways I’ve loved you since the day we met. I was so alone, so damaged...

“But you saw all of me... and you knew me entirely... and you’ve never flinched from anything inside of me. You helped me to heal. You let me be a warrior again. You showed me all your brilliance. You fought me when I wanted it and saved me when I needed it. The girls go through and never stay because *they know*, Sherlock.

“They know that at the very end, there’s only and ever... *you*.”

Now it was Sherlock who reached for him, to enfold him in his long arms.

“That’s why you can’t ever go,” John whispered, tears on his cheeks again.

“I know that. I know it now...” Sherlock soothed.

“You put my soul in that grave with your name on it.”

“Then let me bring it back to you...”

Sherlock kissed him then, with growing passion and a tender restraint that woke again the fire in John’s veins.

“Feeling revived yet?” Sherlock asked archly, an eternity later. John struggled to get his breath back.

“Electrified, like Frankenstein’s creature! You are an apt pupil...”

“I have a gifted tutor.”

Companionably tangled again, bodies pressed with no further show of reluctance – Sherlock tightened his fist in the short blond hair at the base of John’s neck and smirked at his low groan of lust.

“I cannot get enough of you now, Sherlock.”

“Then you’re welcome to keep trying.”

“I want to. I want to take you in my mouth, love.”

A moment’s hesitation.

“Yes.”

Not a waltz but a volta, Watson thought. At every step forward, a sudden turn aside.

“Do you want me to go down on you? Do you think you’d like that?”

“Yes... too much so.” A flash of discomfort.

“I want you to come. I want you to let yourself come. Do you want to?”

A quick, silent, embarrassed nod. John kissed him again.

“If you decide, at any time,” he instructed gently, “that you don’t feel okay with me trying to give you an orgasm tonight – stop me immediately. That is entirely your choice. But for any other reason… I would rather not stop. Okay?”

Very faint: “... yes.”

He pressed his lover lightly down onto the mattress, raising himself to recline in the curve of Sherlock’s splayed legs. Kissing him from this angle was different; he was definitely taller than most girls. Stretching up to reach his face brought so many areas into contact; he was pleased to see Sherlock’s desire unflagging, even when he suckled each nipple gently, even as he trailed kisses down his abdomen.

Even then, as he rubbed his cheek along his lover’s shaft, then opened his lips and took him in.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to deep throat him (although he hoped some day to manage it, hoped to get more chances to try) and gagging now would be disastrous for Sherlock’s self-esteem, so he restrained himself to sucking and licking as much as he could manage and slowly jacking the rest.

Sherlock caught up his free hand by the wrist, holding it in a death grip. John held his arm in return.

“Don’t stop,” he said, his voice low and savage. “Whatever happens, do not stop.”

Orders are orders, thought Watson with glee.

Joined wrist to wrist, like brothers, like shield mates… hand-fasted in the moonlight...

He’s strung as tight as his violin right now. Anything could be his trigger at this point. Does he know his own body well enough to expect it?

Sherlock’s breath was ragged; his body trembled all over. His eyelids flickered. So much stimulation, so many nerves firing all at once. Never felt like this; not by himself in any wretched late night fumbling certainly, and the very thought of anyone else actually participating, helping him, *causing* him to experience these sensations…

His free hand urged so lightly at the back of John’s head. His toes curled as his knees flexed spasmodically and his back bowed. He wanted to flee – was practically desperate for escape. His heart was hammering madly. Yet to pull out of John’s grasp (one hand a firm source of comfort, the other still a cause of terrifying lust and confusion) seemed at this moment completely unthinkable.

Sherlock’s overheated brain wrote one last agitated message over his empty gaze:

*take me to you imprison me for I except you enthrall me never shall be free nor ever chaste except you ravish me ravishmeRAVISHME*

... before it finally shut down, given no other options.

“Oh god,” groaned Sherlock. Every tendon froze, every muscle quivered in place – every fiber of his being sought to hold back the urge that could no longer be denied.

“John!”

What a strange busy moment this is, thought Watson. Loving him, of course. Being proud that I was able to bring him to this, show him this experience. Wondering at how it seems like he’s fighting it... but it’s definitely winning. Wishing I could see his face. Memorizing the beautiful gasping noises he makes. Making a note to mentally apologize to all my exes – I didn’t realize there’s more complicated physics involved than I experienced on the other side of the bed...

For one, the shaft he had been working was now responding wholeheartedly, twitching and pulsing almost fit to jump out of his grasp. He had to concentrate on holding onto it, still prepared to receive Sherlock’s orgasm. It filled his mouth and he swallowed reflexively but his lover was still coming, making those gorgeous anguished cries. He waited until his lover had trailed off into soft groans… Now to move his mouth, careful not to spill any but also not pressing too tightly, he’s already so sensitive.

Sherlock curled up immediately when John released him, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets and sobbing silently. Watson swallowed again and scrubbed his mouth on the back of his wrist, then lay back down and held him like a fragile thing, knowing not to speak. The secret night noises in the other flats went on uninterrupted. He’d known no one would care, not here. No one would care if he had died of a burglar’s blade in this room tonight... except for the man in his arms.

“I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...” Sherlock whispered at last.

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

Sherlock sought his lips for comfort now; tasting himself on them and not caring, feeling Watson wipe his tears away as if from a distance.

“For that last minute, perhaps a minute and a half... everything was white.”

“White?”

“I think *you* might understand, although no one else would. I can’t... ever... stop. The noise and the voices in my head, the words and pictures in front of my eyes – they’re with me all the time. Every memory I’ve ever had from birth itself is still in my brain. Even my dreams are lucid, perfectly logical and controlled – just another tool for deduction, just another blackboard for ideas and diagrams.

“But for that ninety seconds… I heard nothing, I saw nothing. No voices, no music, no memories, no logic, no driving force… just the idea of being, and of you being here with me. That’s never happened before, ever.

“It was so... damned... beautiful.”

Watson pulled up just the sheet and wrapped them in it, smiling gently. “They call it ‘la petit mort’, for just that reason.”

Now Sherlock lay with his head on John’s chest, drawing solace from the sound of his heartbeat.

“Will you tell me about it, some day?” John asked eventually. “About who hurt you that way?”

“What makes you think someone hurt me?” Sherlock answered remotely.

Ten thousand reasons, John thought, and none of which I want to dig out of you tonight. Not tonight while you’re back here as my own miracle, not while you lay here as sweetly as an angel, not while our time together must be so short.

“Nothing in particular,” he lied.

Sherlock heard it, and accepted it for the gift it was. “If I manage to tell anyone in this life, John Watson, it will be only you. But right now...” he breathed, clinging close to his beloved, “... it doesn’t seem to hurt me. Right now, it doesn’t hurt me at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> The first quote Sherlock's brain gives him is from the Bible, Song of Solomon, chapter 2, vs 4-6.
> 
> The later quote in Sherlock's overheated brain is from the sonnet "Batter my heart, three-person'd God" by John Donne, conceptually a poem about God overcoming someone's sinful nature, but written in such heated sexual imagery I'd imagine it might cause the alternate effect. Sherlock's brain (often a rebellious part distinct from Sherlock himself) sees this as what Watson is doing: breaking down his barriers, challenging Sherlock's scars in order to win him, and ravishing him in a very real fashion (however consensual).


End file.
